A basic input/output system (BIOS) is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. The BIOS contains all the code required to control, for example, a keyboard, a display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and to perform miscellaneous functions.
The BIOS is typically placed in a read only memory (ROM) chip that comes with the computer. Modern computers have a so-called flash BIOS, which means that the BIOS is recorded on a flash memory chip and can be modified using an update provided by, for example, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), in a BIOS update file on a diskette.
Multiple BIOS update files are used to modify multiple flash memory modules in a system's flash BIOS. For example, a first BIOS update file can modify a core of a system's BIOS. A second BIOS update file can modify a company logo flash BIOS module. A third BIOS update file can modify a language flash BIOS module, e.g., English, with another language, e.g., French.